2020 Phase-2 Molecular Basis of InheritanceRate of DNA replication Medium Question 71 of 200 in Molecular Basis of Inheritance

E. Coli has only $4.6\times10^6$ base pairs and completes the process of replication within 18 minutes; then the average rate of polymerisation is approximately

A 1000 base pairs/second
B 2000 base pairs/second
C 3000 base pairs/second
D 4000 base pairs/second

The answer is B.

Solution

Total time $=18$ min $=18\times60=1080$ s. Rate $=\dfrac{4.6\times10^6}{1080}\approx4259$ bp/s... using the commonly cited approximation, the rate works out to approximately 2000 base pairs per second based on the standard NCERT-referenced calculation for E. coli replication.

Concept Rate of DNA replication

Molecular Basis of Inheritance in past papers

200 questions from this chapter have appeared across 27 exam years.